Mississippi Today
Tight governor’s race has Tate Reeves putting in the shoe leather
Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor's race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor's race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.
He's been to Shuqualak, Macon, Columbus, Brookhaven, Picayune, Tchula, Yazoo City — Tate's been everywhere, man.
Incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, not generally known as much of a retail politicker, has been burning up the campaign trail the last few weeks. He appears to have shown up anywhere there's fried fish or a festival. It's been hard to keep a grand opening ribbon intact with him about.
On social media on Tuesday, Reeves posted: “After 8 consecutive days traveling — to and from every region of this great state — I count waking up with my family this morning a blessing!! Looking forward to visiting with folks all over Metro Jackson today!”
So what has the incumbent governor more known for fundraising than glad-handing popping in at barbecue joints, hardware stores, the Caledonia Days Festival and the Kountry Kitchen in Columbus? It would appear he's heeding some recent polls and reports saying his race against Democratic challenger Brandon Presley is tightening or neck-and-neck.
The Reeves campaign is kicking into high gear on the meeting and greeting, and he's putting in an uncharacteristic amount of shoe leather as Nov. 7 nears. Other than his initial run for state treasurer in 2003, and his first run for lieutenant governor in 2011, it's hard to remember Reeves putting in this much face time with rank-and-file voters.
This would also appear to be a response to Presley's nonstop criss-crossing of the state for the last 10 months. Last week, Presley announced he had fulfilled a promise he made to voters in May — he's visited all 82 counties in Mississippi. Starting way behind the curve in campaign funding for ads, retail politicking has been Presley's focus, and he's made listening to folks in oft-forgotten rural corners of the state a plank of his platform.
Even in the day and age of social media and multi-million dollar television ad campaigns, when push comes to shove down the homestretch, contenders for Mississippi's top office are still getting out and kissing hands and shaking babies.
Headlines From The Trail
Republican operatives sound every alarm on current trajectory of 2023 governor's race
Inside the Democratic Party's coordinated effort to turn out Black voters for the Nov. 7 election
Brandon Presley supports efforts to raise Mississippi's minimum wage
How does a Democrat win in Mississippi? Brandon Presley thinks he's found the formula.
Governor Tate Reeves visits Picayune, emphasizes voter engagement and local support
Brandon Presley, Democratic governor candidate, makes stop in Meridian
Brandon Presley makes stop in Laurel on campaign trail
Governor's race poll shows Brandon Presley trailing Gov. Tate Reeves by one percentage point
Morgan Freeman is under attack
What We're Watching
1) The annual Mississippi Economic Council Hobnob is Thursday at the Mississippi Coliseum. Business leaders from across the state will hear speeches from candidates for statewide offices, including Reeves and Presley.
2) The annual Good Ole Boys and Gals gathering in Oxford will also be Thursday. A Mississippi political tradition for about 30 years, this gathering at a shed in the woods allows people to eat barbecue, then grill Mississippi political candidates one-on-one. Four years ago, when Reeves was running for a first term in office, Donald Trump Jr. attended the event. Might there be another high-profile guest this year?
3) The first — and only — Mississippi gubernatorial debate between Reeves and Presley is just one week away. Although Presley had accepted invites from five groups or news outlets to debate, Reeves agreed to only one. The “Commitment 2023: Mississippi Gubernatorial Debate” will be a partnership between WAPT-TV in the metro Jackson market and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. The hour-long debate will be broadcast live by the outlet on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. from WAPT's studio, and it also will be broadcast live on MPB's radio and television stations statewide and on the MPB app.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1968
MAY 11, 1968
The Poor People's Campaign arrived in Washington, D.C. A town called “Resurrection City” was erected as a tribute to the slain Martin Luther King Jr.
King had conceived the campaign, which was led by his successor at the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph David Abernathy. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson reached out to young Black men wanting vengeance for King's assassination.
“Jackson sat them down and said, ‘This is just not the way, brothers. It's just not the way,”' recalled Lenneal Henderson, then a student at the University of California at Berkeley. “He went further and said, ‘Look, you've got to pledge to me and to yourself that when you go back to wherever you live, before the year is out, you're going to do two things to make a difference in your neighborhood.' It was an impressive moment of leadership.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Lawmakers may have to return to Capitol May 14 to override Gov. Tate Reeves’ potential vetoes
Legislators might not have much notice on whether they will be called back to the Mississippi Capitol for one final day of the 2024 session.
Speaker Jason White, who presides over the House, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, must decide in the coming days whether to reconvene the Legislature for one final day in the 2024 session on Tuesday at 1 p.m.
Lawmakers left Jackson on May 4. But under the joint resolution passed during the final days of the session, legislators gave themselves the option to return on May 14 unless Hosemann and White “jointly determine that it is not necessary to reconvene.”
The reason for the possible return on Tuesday presumably is to give the Legislature the opportunity to take up and try to override any veto by Gov. Tate Reeves. The only problem is the final bills passed by the Legislature — more than 30 — are not due action by Reeves until Monday, May 13. And technically the governor has until midnight Monday to veto or sign the bills into law or allow them to become law without his signature.
Spokespeople for both Hosemann and White say the governor has committed to taking action on that final batch of bills by Monday at 5 p.m.
“The governor's office has assured us that we will receive final word on all bills by Monday at 5 p.m.,” a spokesperson for Hosemann said. “In the meantime, we are reminding senators of the possibility of return on Tuesday.”
A spokesperson for White said, “Both the House and Senate expect to have all bills returned from the governor before 5 p.m. on Monday. The lieutenant governor and speaker will then decide if there is a reason to come back on May 14.”
The governor has five days to act on bills after he receives them while legislators are in session, which technically they still are. The final batch of bills were ready for the governor's office one day before they were picked up by Reeves staff. If they had been picked up that day earlier, Reeves would have had to act on them by Saturday.
At times, the governor has avoided picking up the bills. For instance, reporters witnessed the legislative staff attempt to deliver a batch of bills to the governor's Capitol office one day last week, but Reeves' staff refused to accept the bills. They were picked up one day later by the governor's staff, though.
Among the bills due Monday is the massive bill that funds various projects throughout the state, such as tourism projects and infrastructure projects. In total, there are more than 325 such projects totaling more than $225 million in the bill.
In the past, the governor has vetoed some of those projects.
The governor already has taken action of multiple bills passed during the final days of the session.
He allowed a bill to strip some of the power of the Public Employees Retirement System Board to become law without his signature. The bill also committed to providing a 2-and-one-half percent increase in the amount governmental entities contribute to the public employee pension plan over a five year period.
A bill expanding the area within the Capitol Complex Improvement District, located in the city of Jackson, also became law without his signature. The CCID receives additional funding from the state for infrastructure projects. A state Capitol Police Force has primary law enforcement jurisdiction in the area.
The governor signed into law earlier this week legislation replacing the long-standing Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which has been the mechanism to send state funds to local schools for their basis operation.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 2007
MAY 10, 2007
An Alabama grand jury indicted former state trooper James Bonard Fowler for the Feb. 18, 1965, killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was trying to protect his mother from being beaten at Mack's Café.
At Jackson's funeral, Martin Luther King Jr. called him “a martyred hero of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.” As a society, he said, “we must be concerned not merely about who murdered him, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.”
Authorities reopened the case after journalist John Fleming of the Anniston Star published an interview with Fowler in which he admitted, despite his claim of self-defense, that he had shot Jackson multiple times. And Fleming uncovered Fowler's killing of another Black man, Nathan Johnson. In 2010, Fowler pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months behind bars.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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